


close your eyes and you'll be there soon

by idaate



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-12 07:51:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10485894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idaate/pseuds/idaate
Summary: [ MAJOR V3 SPOILERS ]The night the first of them leave is harder on some than others.





	

**Author's Note:**

> MAJOR NDRV3 SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE FIC! Please proceed with discretion if you don't wish to be spoiled.
> 
> This may or may not make sense without reading the first chapter of 'life could be beautiful'.

There’s a crack in the window that Kaede’s looking through. When you look at it from a certain angle, the crack distorts how things appear when looked through it, and Kaede uses that to her advantage. 

The tree directly in front of her window loses a few branches. A particular raindrop disappears for a couple seconds. The road gets cut off.

The car driving away from the hospital is split.

Even through the crack, Kaede can read the white characters for ‘DANGANRONPA’ imprinted almost painfully so on the back window of the car. It’s raining, so it looks as if the paint will all wash away if she blinks, so Kaede doesn’t. She keeps her eyes open for as long as she can, till they water and sting. She doesn’t blink till the car has driven far, far away, far enough that it won’t make a difference or not if she looks at it anymore.

She yawns and leans away from the window. The raindrops still disappear for a second, so that’s amusing enough, but she grows tired of it eventually. Kaede stands up, smoothes down her skirt, and steps outside of her room. She knows where she’s headed - to the cafeteria - but carries herself with a sense of urgency nonetheless. As for why, she isn’t quite sure.

The double doors swing open behind her, and there’s a startled clattered from the kitchen. Quirking an eyebrow, Kaede makes her way over  _ there,  _ and finds herself faced with a rather flustered Momota Kaito with a bowl of cookie dough splattered all across the floor.

They stare at each other for a couple seconds before Kaito leans against the counter. “SO.” He says in a voice that’s too loud. “You’ve FOUND ME.”

“Momota,  _ what  _ are you doing--”

“Arrest  _ this!”  _ He sticks his leg out behind him, and Kaede stares.

The pause this time is even longer and more awkward, and Momota puts his leg down.

“Was that...some kind of a joke? That I just failed to get?”

“I...I guess?” Momota leans away from the counter and sighs. “Sorry. I was just trying to lighten the mood, and I ended up making an extremely awkward situation.”

“It’s...it’s okay. I guess that by creating such a situation, you ended up lightening the mood? Somewhat?”

“Ah, thanks, Akamatsu-san.” Momota cracks his knuckles and leans down, reaching to begin cleaning up the mess. “I tried to make some cookies since I...always found that sweets would cheer me up? A bit? I dunno. It’s hard to stay sad when you’ve got a plethora of sweets in front of you. That’s why ice cream is such a good comfort food!”

Kaede thinks of all the nights she spent sobbing and shoving spoonful after spoonful of ice cream into her mouth, and how she didn’t feel much better after the whole ordeal after all. “I think it’s a nice attempt.” She hums. “If you want, I could help you?”

“Yeah, that’d be nice. The only thing I’m really good at doing is frying stuff, honestly. I’m sure you’re far better than cooking stuff than I’ll ever be.” Momota laughs tiredly, and Kaede winces.

“Ah, don’t say that.” She says softly. 

“Say what?”

“Say ‘than I’ll ever be’ “

“See, here I thought this was gonna be you being modest or something, but--”

“Talking about the future like...like it’s a certain thing.” Kaede muses. “I don’t think that’s right to do. The future is really, really uncertain. We might die in a freak accident in a few minutes, or we might hear the best news of our lives. We just don’t know.”

Momota blinks. “You know, I think...I think you’re trying to show me this really deep, insightful thing that you’ve got going on, but, frankly? On my end, I don’t give two shits about the future. I’m not trying to be psychological or philosophical or whatever big fancy word you’re supposed to use. I just want to make my cookies,” Momota motions at the mess, “and enjoy them. If I can successfully make an edible batch of cookies without anyone dying, I’ll consider that a good enough future for me. And then we can work off of there.”

Kaede shrugs. “I think you’re aiming too high.”

“Wow, fuck you too.” Kaito turns away. “Hurry up if you’re going to help me, then. Otherwise, I might poison Harumaki or something, and that wouldn’t be good, would it?”

“Like Harukawa-san would eat your cookies.”

“Like I said,  _ fuck you too.” _

Kaede giggles despite herself and begins helping Momota. The idea of living with him, with Maki, plays at her mind, but she dismisses it a bit too quickly. Not now.

Not yet.

“After we make our  _ delightful  _ batch of cookies, let’s take them to the lounge, okay?” Momota hums. “No one likes hanging out in the cafeteria in the first place, so the lounge would be a much better option to accumulate everyone together.”

“...is bringing everyone together really such a good idea?”

“Sure it is.”

 

.

 

Shinguji is an expert of nightmares. After all, he only has them every other night - nightmares of killing, of dying, of being alive.

(whenever he closes his eyes, he can see the face of  _ her  _ grinning with lips dyed red with blood or tomato juice, depends on how she’s feeling, as she croons sweet nothings into his ear and some sick, twisted part of him that he hates more than he thought possible actually  _ likes  _ it)

It’s such images like these that imprint themselves into his mind to the point that he downs three cups of coffee like it’s his lifeline, swallowing them greedily before slamming them on the kitchen counter with a satisfied noise that doesn’t match his mood. One of the assistants at Team  _ Danganronpa  _ (he’s only a couple years older than Shinguji himself, with an innocent bowl cut that doesn’t quite match his position. for a little while, it almost makes Shinguji feel  _ loved,  _ the fragile relationship that he has with the worker, and then he remembers that this kid has worked in an industry where people kill each other on live television  _ of his own choice  _ and he doesn’t quite feel that love anymore) offers him some sleeping meds after noticing the bags that hang under his eyes like jewelry, and sometimes he accepts.

He doesn’t want to risk being addicted to the stuff, after all. Though that would just be another check on the good ol’ ‘look at this failure/excuse (take your pick) of a person!!’ board, and wouldn’t it be pleasant to just slip a few too many pills down his throat and  _ just-- _

But no. That’s not what he’s here to do tonight. Tonight, he is  _ fully  _ intending on making a beeline to the kitchen, to the coffee, to the caffeine that will inevitably grant him a couple more hours or minutes of sanity before even that can’t keep him awake any longer.

At least, those are the intentions, until he hears Himiko’s scream from within one of the dorm rooms.

The only thing that’s running through his mind is the cheerful plea of  _ a body has been discovered!  _ and  _ oh no not again not again not again--  _ but it isn’t back then, not anymore. Himiko’s screaming, yes, but she’s alright, she’s okay, this isn’t like when she found out that he had murdered both of her best friends in the whole wide world and she had only just  _ barely  _ escaped death herself.

He shudders to a halt in front of her bed, and she clutches her blankets close to her chest in a wide-eyed fear. “Chabashira?” She chokes out, and Shinguji’s heart breaks.

“No, it’s...it’s not.” He murmurs, and at his voice, Himiko tenses up even further. “S-sorry. I’ll go leave, now. I can fetch Chabashira-san herself, if you’d like--”

He turns to leave, but is halted by Himiko’s fist clenching at his sleeve. He pauses and turns around. “Don’t leave.” She murmurs. “I...sorry, it’s. I...I just. I…”

“Bad dream?” Shinguji interrupts her stuttering, and she nods.

“Yeah.  _ Very  _ bad dream.”

Awkwardly, Shinguji sits next to her on the edge of the bed. Though it’s made for resting, it still feels like he’s sitting on needles, and he winces slightly. Himiko can’t notice, though, not through the dark, and she wiggles a little bit closer to him. He breathes.

“Chabashira is wrong about you, you know.” Himiko says after a couple minutes of tense breathing. Shinguji quirks an eyebrow.

“O-oh?”

“She says you’re just like you were inside the game.” Himiko adds, and Shinguji feels another wave of shame wash over him. “You’re not. You’re real different.  _ All  _ of us are real different. Some of us changed for the worst, and some of us changed for the better. Like...like you. And Ouma-kun, too. No one seems to give Ouma-kun a chance. I don’t think he’s giving  _ himself  _ a chance.”

Shinguji’s thoughts dance over the smaller boy, and he nods slightly, hesitantly. “I see where you’re coming fr--”

“I don’t think you’re givin’ yourself a chance, either.”

Shinguji falls silent at that. There’s a lump in the back of his throat.

“Sorry if I went too far with that.”

“N-no, it’s fine.” Shinguji leans forward, stands up. “Hey, do you want to go to the cafeteria? I-I was planning on going there before I, uh…”

“Heard me scream?”

“...yeah.”

“I’m really makin’ you uncomfy tonight, aren’t I?” Himiko laughs lightly and takes his hand, squeezing it. Shinguji is far too scared to squeeze back. “Sorry about that. The lounge would be nicer, though. I heard earlier that Momota-kun was planning on making cookies, or something, and then he was gonna take them to the lounge. I’m pretty sure he’d poison anyone with any of the food  _ he  _ makes, though, so I’m not holding any high hopes.” She laughs lightly and pulls Shinguji towards the door. “C’mon!”

Shinguji follows, and considers drinking something other than caffeinated coffee tonight.

 

.

 

Iruma is starting to regret not actually following through on the opportunity of being able to leave the hospital. Sure, the infinite hot chocolate supply sounded all well and good at first in the heat of the moment, back when everyone was all together and she could still poke fun at Shyhara, but now that everyone was gone...well, it hurt just a tad to be left behind, for a lack of words.

She had talked with Kiibo earlier while she had exercised at the gym. Usually, she practiced with Gonta or even more commonly, Tenko, but Gonta was off in that fancy-shmancy hotel room with all the others who had left and Tenko was probably fawning over Himiko or something. The point  _ being,  _ neither of them were at the gym while she had exercised, and after a while, Kiibo had had to excuse himself in order to concentrate on guiding Gonta as he drove through the traffic. Though the AI  _ did  _ have the ability to split himself up into seemingly infinite bits, there was a limit to his abilities - if he needed to concentrate on something,  _ all  _ of him needed to be there.

So that’s what she was doing, running on a treadmill with her bra straps digging into her shoulders because she didn’t wear a sports bra. It was just one of those days (or nights), it seemed.

The door to the gym opens, and she glances over, sweat drenching her brow. “Ah, hey, Hoshi!” She huffs.

“Hey.” Hoshi walks over to the treadmill next to Iruma and, after a moment’s hesitation, hits one of the buttons. Though he was aiming for the ‘start’ button (or at least, that’s what Iruma assumes) he misses by a mile and instead begins to blast Tom Jones’  _ It’s Not Unusual  _ over the treadmill’s speakers. Iruma promptly begins to lose it as Hoshi sputters indignantly, pressing button after button as he tries to settle on something that actually  _ works. _

It takes a good twenty seconds for Iruma to formulate enough self-control to step off her own treadmill and turn off the music. Hoshi’s a deep red by that point, but nonetheless, Iruma bangs her hand against his back.

“Ah, don’t pout so much, my small guy!” She hums. “You know, they say if you frown too much, you’ll end up getting wrinkles and you don’t want to look like that when you’re only, uh…” She does the numbers in her head. “What, fifteen, sixteen?”

“...I’m eighteen.”

“Nyaha! I was pretty close, wasn’t I?” Iruma gives him a big ol’ thumbs up, but Hoshi simply sighs and turns the machine completely off. Iruma frowns. “Hey, weren’t you planning on exercising? You can’t just come in and do nothing, you know! That’s called being lazy, and you won’t have any muscle if you take that path in life! You don’t want that, do you?”

Hoshi glances behind him. “Yeah, I was planning on exercising,” He concedes, “but with you here, I’m...really not feeling it. Sorry.”

Something inside Iruma deflates, but she grins cheekily nonetheless, staring Hoshi down. “Oh, is that so?”

“...yeah, that’s so.”

Iruma turns off her treadmill and puts on her hoodie. Now it’s Hoshi’s turn to frown, and he does. 

“What are you doing?”

“Joining you.” Iruma says very matter of factly, pulling her sleeves up and picking up the water bottle she had grabbed earlier from the kitchen. “Let’s gooo, my small dude!”

“I didn’t  _ ask  _ for your company--”

“Ah, tut tut! You didn’t have to say it, I could see your deep cravings in your eyes!” Iruma pulls her shoulders up and grins cheekily as Hoshi stares, unamused. “Who  _ wouldn’t  _ want to be in my marvelous presence? Truly, you should be honored by having someone like  _ me  _ on board, you know?”

“...right.” Hoshi sighs. “Well, if you really can’t live without bothering me for the next hour or so, then I’m headed off to the lounge. Momota paged me and said he was making cookies.”

“Do you  _ really  _ trust him to make good cookies?”

“No, of course not.”

Iruma snorts.

 

.

 

The sheets of Ouma’s bed are thin. That’s not the fault of anyone in the hospital, of course, even though it seemed like everything was  _ their  _ fault these days. Their fault that their memories were wiped. Their fault that their lives were ruined. Their fault that they’d never be able to look themselves in the mirror again and think to themselves a single positive thought.

But no - it was not ‘their fault’ that Ouma was covered in nothing but paper thin sheets. Ouma has his pick of sheets from the floor, after all, thicker and fluffier blankets that would most definitely wrap his tiny frame and fill him with warmth. So it wasn’t their fault, it was Ouma’s own fault that he was shivering in the dark.

The warm artificial light of the hallway slips in from underneath his door, through the crack between the tiny window and it’s covering. Ouma has long lost track of time since he’s woken up, because it’s felt like weeks and months and years all blend together now. Not like he’s been awake for years, though.

Not like he wants to be awake in the first place.

The only day that marks today different from the daily ‘avoid everyone till they forget you existed and then maybe they’ll hate you a little less’ grind is that they’ve left the hospital -  _ Saihara  _ has left the hospital,  _ Amami  _ has left the hospital, Gonta and Toujou and Angie have all left. And Kiibo with them, Ouma supposes, but it’s not like he would ever leave.

Ouma doesn’t think he’ll ever leave the hospital himself.

There’s a sound of something like laughter that comes from the lounge and Ouma sits up as he feel a pang of either hunger or hatred in his stomach. He can’t quite tell, not when his mind is clouded with the noises of everyone talking and laughing and enjoying a well cooked, warm meal - oh, so it was hunger, then.

He pulls the sheets closer around his frame, knuckles white through the dark as they clutch to the sheets like he’s holding on for  _ life.  _ It feels like that, sometimes, when he’s walking down the hall and he’s afraid that if someone looks at him with too much intensity that he’ll just burn up on the spot.

The sounds from the lounge get louder and louder, and Ouma wonders if Shirogane is with them. She’s the only person here who anyone might even consider hating more than him, ‘cause she did more ‘bad’ or whatever, but no one  _ realized  _ that she was doing bad until long after everyone cared. Besides, nearly everyone was dead before they figured out how much they needed to hate her.

Besides, Ouma couldn’t hate her that much. He couldn’t fault her, not with what he’s done. At least Gonta isn’t there anymore, a walking reminder of how he completely,  _ terribly  _ fucked up.

The sounds are  _ ringing  _ in his ears now, to the point that he can’t bear them, and with a scowl on his face he stands up, sheet billowing out behind him like a cape as he flings open the door.

He feels regret every step of the way down the hallway, sock covered feet nearly slipping on the linoleum floor, but he can’t bring himself to take the socks off of put on properly soled slippers. Ouma already feels his face burning in embarrassment, and he  _ knows  _ that the percentage of people in the lounge are going to be filled more of ‘those that dislike the SHSL Supreme Leader’ than of ‘those who can bear with Ouma Kokichi’ but he steps through the doorway to the lounge anyway.

It seems like the response is immediate, the group of survivors several tables down lulling their talking down to a hush and instead focusing every fiber of their attention on Ouma. He was planning on going in, on grabbing a bar or something and  _ pretending  _ to eat it, sitting besides them all and continuing his lying habit beyond the game by making a statement that ‘he’s good enough to sit with them’, but now, with Momota’s glare and Maki’s  _ eyes-- _

Now he is frozen, sweat dripping down his forehead in bullets as he stands in the doorway of the lounge. His hands clench, unclench, and he opens his mouth like a gaping fish. Shirogane isn’t with them, he notes, and somehow that makes breathing even harder.

_ Stupid stupid stupid stupid-- _

“O-Ouma-kun!” Himiko speaks up, and Ouma has never felt such a shock resonate through him (except for when his body was crushed like a can) and he looks up hesitantly. The redhead motions awkwardly towards him. “Come sit next to me!”

He takes a couple steps towards the table before pausing and looking over at Tenko. The girl herself doesn’t seem to care much one way or the other, her face resting on a tired expression. She shrugs when they make eye contact, motioning at the seat as if to say ‘take it if you want, Tenko doesn’t care’.

Tentatively, like he’s stepping on glass, Ouma puts one foot in front of the other until he’s standing directly next to the seat Himiko’s offered. He sits down, and a little voice in the back of his head says  _ this is where Saihara-chan usually sits you don’t deserve to sit here  _ but he forces it down, for once.

Someone slides him a bowl of ice cream and the talking resumes, as if Ouma had never been there, and he reaches for the spoon sitting in it.The ice cream is grape flavored, and though Ouma doesn’t think he can ever taste grape ever again without immediately throwing up, he eats a spoonful anyway. Someone was probably trying to be thoughtful and kind, giving him the grape flavor. They weren’t trying to make him feel like shit (or that’s what he tells himself).

“Thank you,” He murmurs, though no one can hear him.

He can enjoy it now, and leave worrying about cleaning the sheets of his bed of vomit to the employees of Team  _ Danganronpa. _

 

.

 

Driving a car feels weird.

They were offered a ride from one of the members of Team  _ Danganronpa,  _ because there is no reason as to why they  _ wouldn’t  _ be offered such a ride. In fact, there’s no reason as to why they should’ve refused the offer. All five of them would’ve gotten some much needed sleep, and they’d be at the apartment before any of them knew it.

Nonetheless, Gonta stuck his foot down and declared that he was going to drive the car, despite barely being sixteen. Whatever. They offered driver’s ed in the hospital, he had passed his driving test, he had things settled. Even if they were a rushed sort of settled that didn’t quite fit. 

Whatever.

His hands feel too big on the steering wheel. Gonta constantly shifts his grasp on the wheel, trying to figure out how to make himself the most comfortable without leaving anyone else in the car unsafe. He’s got to be the responsible one, because they trusted him behind the wheel, didn’t they?

It scared him how much people trusted him. They trusted the Gonta  _ inside  _ of the game, the Gonta who did nothing but apologize and try to make things better for everyone and the only bad thing he ever  _ really  _ did was be unable to tell his left from his right, because ‘right is the hand you hold your chopsticks in’.

Idiot Gonta.

But even an idiot was better than the person he had been before the game, wasn’t it? A person who was known for smashing your skull in if you looked at him the wrong way, or a baby boy trying too hard to prove with violence that he was a man - that was a disgusting degenerate that Gonta didn’t want to associate himself with.

Gonta’s hands tighten on the steering wheel, and Angie places a tiny hand on top of them. He freezes up, for a moment - he almost forgot there was anyone else in the car - and he looks besides him. 

Angie’s eyelids are drooping, and it’s obvious that she’s fighting with herself in order to stay awake. Why, Gonta isn’t sure - it’s not like he’s falling asleep right now and needs someone to talk to him to keep him awake. He wasn’t much of a talker, and anyways, Saihara, Amami, and Toujou were all asleep in the back. All the far more interesting people that Angie  _ could  _ be talking to were in dreamland, and she, frankly, should be joining them.

“Hey.” Angie says softly.

“Hey.” Gonta whispers back. “You should be asleep.”

“Angie is not--” Angie lets out a long, drawn out yawn, “--tired.”

Gonta snorts, and he has to concentrate in order to stay in control of the car.

“Whatever you say.”

“Mmm.” Angie looks back at the road. “Hey, Gonta-san…”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think...back in the hospital, everyone will leave? Everyone will be okay?”

It’s unspoken that Angie’s only referring to her trio of Himiko and Tenko, but Gonta considers the question with everyone in mind anyway. More than anything, he wants to say yes. Yes, Kaede will come around. Yes, Iruma will care for herself. Yes, Himiko will stop having nightmares. Yes, Ouma will forgive himself.

Yes, Gonta will figure out who he’s supposed to be.

Instead, Gonta rolls his head around his neck and sighs. “I’m not a mind reader,” he murmurs, and he can see Angie droop out of the corner of his eye, “but I don’t think...anyone will live a meaningless or completely tragic life.”

“Oh.” Angie’s not impressed by his answer. “No happy endings?”

“I think a happy ending is impossible to achieve in anywhere other than a fairy tale, but I think we can come pretty damn close.”

Angie raises an eyebrow and leans back in her sleep, yawning. “M’kay.” She mutters, and Gonta’s grip on the steering wheel looses slightly.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave comments and kudos if you enjoyed!


End file.
